Artemis Productions - Auguste Rodin (2017)

Auguste Rodin (1840-1917), man of the people, autodidact and revolutionary sculptor – the most brilliant of his era. Paris, 1880. Auguste Rodin is 40 years old and is entering his richest creative years, punctuated by his greatest masterpieces, his most beautiful loves but also his greatest disappointments. In this effervescence, all the creative power of the artist is expressed. Paris 1880. The scandalous and successful sculptor Auguste Rodin believes he has achieved his dreams. At the age of 40 he receives his first state commission “The Gates of Hell” - inspired by Dante's “Divine Comedy” - is to be a bronze portal to decorate the entrance to the new Museum of Decorative Arts in the Louvre in Paris - an all-consuming work that becomes Rodin's life's work. The Gates of Hell was composed of figurines, some of which would become his most famous works The Kiss and The Thinker. A phase of manic creativity begins, which becomes even more intense when Rodin meets the highly talented Camille Claudel, 24 years his junior. He quickly acknowledges her as his most able pupil, and treats her as an equal in matters of creation. She is his student and lover for more than a decade - a relationship between two geniuses that is as passionate as it is turbulent. A decade of passion, but also ten years of shared admiration and complicity. Breakup follows reconciliation until Camille makes the final separation from which she will not recover, and from which Rodin himself will emerge deeply wounded. Inspired by the modernity of his lover, Rodin throws himself into his work with even greater obsession, experiences triumphs and defeats - and at the age of 60 is considered to be the greatest sculptor of all time, comparable only to Michelangelo. The film also recounts the artist's numerous affairs with assistants and models, as well as his relationship with Rose Beuret, his lifelong partner. We discover Rodin as an erotically charged sensualist, for whom art is a profoundly sexual delight – a sculptor of flesh in movement, who gives life to the very stone itself. He faced both the rejection and the enthusiasm that the sensuality of his sculpture provoked, and with his Balzac monument, rejected during his lifetime, creates the undeniable starting point of modern sculpture. With Vincent LINDON in the role of Auguste Rodin, Izia HIGELIN in the role of Camille Claudel and Severine CANEELE in the role of Rose Beuret.

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